Does battery need service really?

[donawalt]

Hi all, I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 16". It has mostly been plugged in over the years, and I use Aldente keeping it at 65% or so. Anyway, I noticed today the system settings show "Service recommended" on the battery. Yet I am puzzled - coconut shows it still can charge to almost 91% of design capacity, it only has 35 cycle count (I use this one sparingly as a backup for certain tasks), so I don't see anything warranting what the message says, "Your battery's capacity is significantly reduced". To be safe, I uninstalled Aldente and let it charge to 100% before taking the picture of the screens below - being at 100% didn't change anything. I also power cycled the laptop.

What's going on, is this a mistake, and is there a way to reset things? Thanks!

 

[David1986H]

Hi all, I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 16". It has mostly been plugged in over the years, and I use Aldente keeping it at 65% or so. Anyway, I noticed today the system settings show "Service recommended" on the battery. Yet I am puzzled - coconut shows it still can charge to almost 91% of design capacity, it only has 35 cycle count (I use this one sparingly as a backup for certain tasks), so I don't see anything warranting what the message says, "Your battery's capacity is significantly reduced". To be safe, I uninstalled Aldente and let it charge to 100% before taking the picture of the screens below - being at 100% didn't change anything. I also power cycled the laptop.

What's going on, is this a mistake, and is there a way to reset things? Thanks!

View attachment 2144714

According to this video you need to delete some files in the library folder - preferences folder and delete the files com.apple.power... then restart your Mac.

 

[donawalt]

Thanks @David1986H, I will try this! I did an SMC reset which did not help, and now I am in the middle of a battery calibration according to Apple support - assuming that won't fix it (SMC Reset did not), I'll try this next! Thank you for your help - I'll post back tomorrow on the results!

 

[donawalt]

Hi @David1986H and others, the battery calibration completed this morning, I booted up, and it still says Service Recommended. So I tried the tip in the youtube, deleting the com.apple.powerXXXX files in \Library\Preferences and rebooted, it still says Service Recommended. Very odd.

 

[chrfr]

Hi @David1986H and others, the battery calibration completed this morning, I booted up, and it still says Service Recommended. So I tried the tip in the youtube, deleting the com.apple.powerXXXX files in \Library\Preferences and rebooted, it still says Service Recommended. Very odd.

It’s not that odd. Sometimes circuitry in batteries fails, and the battery needs replacement.

 

[MBAir2010]

The 2010 MacBook Air had this alert from Mojave 2018 until July 2022 when the battery was critical, but worked.
I replace the battery this autumn and all is good.

Just use your MacBook Pro as you would normally do,
If the battery usage is normal, your are good to go
if the battery is getting lower faster, it obviously needs replacement.
also check for excessive heat on the keyboard, that is a sign of a bad battery.

personally I think this software for servicing batteries is not accurate, as my experience stated.

 

[donawalt]

Thanks all, I'll keep an eye on it. As @MBAir2010 said, it does look fishy - especially since Coconut Battery disagrees.

 

[Beau10]

Thanks all, I'll keep an eye on it. As @MBAir2010 said, it does look fishy - especially since Coconut Battery disagrees.

What is the OS telling you percentage-wise? You can see this if you go to MacOS's System Settings -> Battery. I believe it should only show that message when cap has dipped below 80%. I've seen this message twice before and in both cases it crossed that threshold.

My 14" shows 90% here and 89% in iStat menus, 6 months ago they were actually about 4-5% apart (system was saying I was ~93-94 while iStats has been at this level for awhile). Unsure why there is a discrepancy.

 

[donawalt]

What is the OS telling you percentage-wise? You can see this if you go to MacOS's System Settings -> Battery. I believe it should only show that message when cap has dipped below 80%. I've seen this message twice before and in both cases it crossed that threshold.

My 14" shows 90% here and 89% in iStat menus, 6 months ago they were actually about 4-5% apart (system was saying I was ~93-94 while iStats has been at this level for awhile). Unsure why there is a discrepancy.

Thanks @Beau10, my battery panel does not look the same, I guess they change reporting when Service is recommended (see below for my panel). Yet, I go into System Report/Power, and it says full charge capacity is 7650, which agrees with coconut. Coconut says that's 87% o max, reported as 8790, which is also correct. So it seems everybody agrees the battery is at 87%, yet Service is Recommended?

 

[Beau10]

Thanks @Beau10, my battery panel does not look the same, I guess they change reporting when Service is recommended (see below for my panel). Yet, I go into System Report/Power, and it says full charge capacity is 7650, which agrees with coconut. Coconut says that's 87% o max, reported as 8790, which is also correct. So it seems everybody agrees the battery is at 87%, yet Service is Recommended?
View attachment 2145283

Weird, this panel value should be in accords with what is reported on system. To see this panel, click the 'i' icon to the right of Service Recommended, that's what brings it up for me.

 

[donawalt]

Yeah - must change when service is needed. Here is what I see when I click the 'i'; 'Learn more' and 'Service options' just go to web pages.